Investment Teaser

The initial paper provided to an investor

Author: Elliot Meade
Elliot Meade
Elliot Meade
Private Equity | Investment Banking

Elliot currently works as a Private Equity Associate at Greenridge Investment Partners, a middle market fund based in Austin, TX. He was previously an Analyst in Piper Jaffray's Leveraged Finance group, working across all industry verticals on LBOs, acquisition financings, refinancings, and recapitalizations. Prior to Piper Jaffray, he spent 2 years at Citi in the Leveraged Finance Credit Portfolio group focused on origination and ongoing credit monitoring of outstanding loans and was also a member of the Columbia recruiting committee for the Investment Banking Division for incoming summer and full-time analysts.

Elliot has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management from Columbia University.

Reviewed By: Patrick Curtis
Patrick Curtis
Patrick Curtis
Private Equity | Investment Banking

Prior to becoming our CEO & Founder at Wall Street Oasis, Patrick spent three years as a Private Equity Associate for Tailwind Capital in New York and two years as an Investment Banking Analyst at Rothschild.

Patrick has an MBA in Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School and a BA in Economics from Williams College.

Last Updated:January 21, 2024

What is an Investment Teaser?

Usually, the investment "teaser" is the initial paper you provide to an investor.

While addressing essential features of your company, it should be as brief as possible. For example, it may be presented in a standard PowerPoint format, a two-page document, or, occasionally, in an exciting video.

To paraphrase Marc Andreessen, a teaser, in our opinion, is a terrific way for a new firm to compile its crucial info.

This effectively means that the following should be reflected in it:

  • The market
  • Unique positioning
  • Profitability
  • Financial requirements

This encourages the team to meet, capture its business plan on paper, and maintain it over time.

After a brief phone introduction or a five-minute informal conversation at a conference, investors will ask you for a teaser, which is a quick overview of your business. This summary will be used for internal assessment and, perhaps, a discussion with other investment partners.

Its purpose is to inform investors about the investment opportunity rather than its risks. As a result, investors would see the investment as "sight unseen" at that point. 

The corporation is only protected from claims that it did not disclose enough information about itself or the securities in question until it files a disclosure.

Let us now take an overview of 'investment' in detail…

Key Takeaways

  • An investment teaser is a concise document that provides an overview of your business to potential investors.
  • Investments can be made in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ULIPs, each with its own risks and rewards.
  • When investing, analyze your financial needs, diversify your portfolio, consider the time period, and reassess periodically.
  • Investment objectives include preserving purchasing power, saving for retirement, and meeting financial goals.
  • A strong investment teaser clearly explains your business, states transaction goals, presents evidence, maintains honesty, and is concise.

Understanding Investment Teaser

An asset developed to allow money to grow is essentially an investment. 

Many individuals, including people like you, rely on the markets to finance purchases such as:

  • Homes
  • Education expenses for children
  • Retirement savings

However, unlike the banking industry, where deposits are protected by federal deposit insurance, the value of stocks, bonds, and other securities change according to the state of the market.

The money generated can be used for several goals, including:

  • Covering wage inequality
  • Saving for retirement
  • Performing specific commitments like debt repayment, tuition payment, or acquiring other assets

You may earn money from investments in one of two ways:

  1. One may profit when one trades an asset, assuming it is tradeable
  2. You may generate income through the accumulation of profits if you invest in a return-generating asset

A financial item purchased in the hope that its value will increase over time is referred to as an investment. Investments often fall into one of the four fundamental groups listed in the following sections.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, along with several other smaller Government bodies, govern how investments are marketed and sold. 

According to the SEC, "[their] mission includes an essential component of protecting investors. [They] are unable to advise you on the best investments to make, but [their] website offers neutral data to aid in your decision-making and fraud protection."

Exploring Different Types Of Investments

The main goal of an investment is to earn a return over a certain amount of time. There are four main types of investment:

  1. Stocks: This includes stock in any firm. They may provide benefits like dividend payments or voting power.
  2. Bonds: When a bond is purchased from the issuer (in the primary market), money is given to the issuing business or government in exchange for regular fixed interest payments and the face amount of the loan when it matures.
  3. Mutual Funds: Through these assets, money is collected from many investors and is managed and invested by fund managers. Depending on your risk tolerance, knowledge of investing, and investment goals, you may select equities or debt funds.
  4. ULIP: Unit-linked insurance plans, often known as ULIPs, are a kind of investment that offers both life insurance and investment rewards.
    • When money is invested in a ULIP, a percentage of the premium is invested under various funds to assist you in generating market-linked returns. 
    • This means that, in this plan, a portion of your premium is invested in various funds. Additionally, there are tax advantages.

Investment Strategies: How to Make informed decisions?

It is essential to comprehend what an investment is because, on occasion, it might be challenging to select the appropriate instruments to achieve your financial objectives. 

You can make the best decisions if you understand the significance of investments in your specific financial circumstances.

  1. Analyze Your Financial Needs: Analyze your financial status first, considering your risk tolerance, investing goals, and other factors, like family size, the number of earners in your house, and your plans for the future.
  2. Investment Diversification: By investing your money in various products, you can create a diversified financial portfolio that meets your investment goals while preserving the proper ratio of risk to return.
  3. Time Period: You should also be aware that it can be challenging to determine what an investment implies for a specific person without taking time into account. Therefore, when deciding what to invest in, remember how much time you have before you withdraw your funds.
  4. Periodical Reassessment: You must closely monitor your money because nearly every asset is subject to market factors. You may consider modifying it if your portfolio isn't producing solid returns.

Objectives Of Investment: Setting Your Financial Goals

Understanding your investing goals and choosing where to invest are frequently the next steps after asking, "What is the investment?" 

Putting aside investments in real estate and other assets like jewelry and understanding the different types of investments is another essential part of knowing "what investment means" when it comes to different instruments.

To Keep Money Safe

Some investments help avoid the slow decline of purchasing power due to inflation. Therefore, you may prevent or reduce the impacts of inflation by placing your money in these instruments or plans. 

Your money may be kept safe with fixed deposits, government bonds, and even a savings account.

To Save Up For Retirement

Retirement savings are essential. You likely will not be able to work forever, so it's important to have a retirement fund you can rely on in your golden years.

To Meet Your Financial Goals

Additionally, investing can assist you in quickly achieving both your short- and long-term financial objectives. For instance, specific investment options have high liquidity and brief lock-in periods. 

These investments are the perfect vehicles if you want to set aside money for short-term goals like paying for home upgrades or setting up an emergency fund. However, for long-term aims, longer lock-in periods offered by other investing alternatives are ideal as they generally come with higher rates of return.

What's in a Teaser Document?

The purpose is to ensure the correct guide will invest and come to help you grow your company, not to sell your company entirely—that will come later.

  1. Buyers Need to Understand Your Business Clearly
    • How your business makes money
    • The year your business was established.  
    • The sectors you operate in 
    • The method through which your business distributes its goods/services
    • The backgrounds of your management
    • Financial status overall: 3 years of past revenue, EBIT/EBITDA, and at least two years of future income are usually required.
  2. The goals of the Proposed Transaction Should Be Clearly Stated: Are you seeking expansion funding, a change of ownership, a recapitalization, a liquidity event, or a simplification of the shareholder base?
    • Your honesty with potential purchasers on your objectives and justification for wanting to complete a deal will be appreciated. This kind of conduct establishes trust with any potential customers you choose to work with.
  3. Let the Hard Evidence Explain Itself: It must be a well-written and professional piece of writing. Always choose a formal typeface (either Times New Roman or Arial). Transmit it in PDF format. AVOID capitalizing words.
  4. Reveal the Truth: You can never regain the trust of potential buyers, and there is a good chance that they will find out about your dishonesty during the due diligence procedure.
  5. Keep it Professional and Brief: Remember that your audience analyzes hundreds of acquisition options each year. Use your time wisely. Instead of making people seek to understand what your business does and who it serves, you want them to spend time thinking about how interesting your firm is.
  6. Never Reveal the Name of Your Company Until it is Necessary: Before signing a confidentiality agreement, prospective purchasers will check the teaser, so be sure they cannot identify your organization from its information.

The Significance of the One-Page Investment Teaser

It's not always simple to create these papers. However, they are crucial to the growth of your business. Additionally, submitting one demonstrates to potential investors that you are serious about obtaining and spending the funds wisely. 

Each day, venture capitalists and angel investors get a ton of proposals; yours needs to stand out.

A one-page investment teaser is crucial to making an excellent first impression. After all, having a clear yet thorough pitch creates a VC's appetite for learning more about what your firm has to offer. 

Put the most convincing information first rather than trying to pack as much data as possible into the page.

Smart venture capitalists and angel investors will evaluate the essential aspects, make a few notes, and get in touch with you if they're interested. You must, thus, capture them with immediate, concrete advantages. 

It's your responsibility to make it as simple and quick for them to grasp your company and target market as you can. Never undervalue the influence of automation, technology, or convenience.

Distributing Your One-Page Investment Teaser: Key Considerations

The one-page investment teaser is often something you want investors to read before your first meeting. Therefore, you should include that in an email you send the potential investor. 

After meeting them at a networking event or giving them a quick elevator pitch somewhere else, you may send them this email. If you believe you'll need a few of them during an event, you may also print off a few hard copies to distribute.

In terms of distribution format, even if you could type it in Word, PDFs are typically easier to open and offer more platform compatibility. 

Mac users may try to open your .docx file in Pages if they don't have Word, for instance. The pixel-perfect accuracy of PDFs is ensured on all desktop and mobile devices.

It frequently takes numerous documents and presentations to convince people to fund your startup. You'll need a great pitch deck and a powerful verbal pitch. 

Essential data and facts about your business, such as the number of customers you already have, your expected growth, and your financial situation, should be included. 

Equity investing can offer larger rewards and somewhat higher risk if your investment goals are compatible. Debt instruments, on the other hand, are less risky but have lower returns.

Elements of Effective Teasers

Teasers are delivered to prospective purchasers such as financial investors like Private Equity (PE) firms and strategic investors or businesses operating in the same industry. The teaser is being sent to evaluate their interest in a potential contract.

A Description Of The Product Or Yourself

Your audience may not be familiar with who you are, what your business does, or how your product functions depending on how they found your video. 

As we'll explain, mystery can be a strong technique, so you might not want to share all those elements simultaneously. Nevertheless, you should provide some background so viewers understand why you're important.

Visuals

Humans are visual learners; the brain receives 90 percent of visual information and processes images 600,000 times more quickly than words. In light of this, the text should be used in addition to, not as a substitute for, visuals and video. 

Name And Logo

The video should feature your name and logo at least once. If you don't, you'll produce a fantastic film that the audience will like but ultimately leads to nothing as they have no idea where to follow up. 

You need to reinforce the link between your "story" and your product in the minds of your viewers.

Social Proof

Social proof has a significant impact. Your audience is far more likely to purchase your goods if they know that others believe in, rely on, and adore them. So incorporate social evidence as much as you can.

CTA

The most crucial component could be a "call-to-action," which offers viewers clear advice on what to do next. If your film isn't targeted at something, all the passion and feelings it stirs up will be for nothing.

Conclusion: Empowering Your Investment Journey 

There are several reasons why investing your money is crucial. First, for future goals, to aid in times of need, job loss, or both, you want to build capital. 

To prevent your money from losing value over time, you need to use compounding while accounting for inflation. 

Additionally, investment is crucial to help you reach your objectives if you intend to retire and stop working.

For instance, purchasing stocks has the potential to yield significant returns. In comparison, although they are less hazardous than investing in stocks, money market or savings account investments probably won't offer the same return potential. 

Your risk tolerance, or appetite for it, determines how much risk you are willing to take. You are entirely up to how much risk you're ready to accept in exchange for potentially larger rewards. 

If you employ the factors we discussed, you can prepare an excellent teaser representing your company well in front of significant investors, regardless of the purpose.

Researched and authored by Charbel Yammine | LinkedIn

Reviewed and edited by James Fazeli-Sinaki | LinkedIn

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